


Laundry Day

by bette (ferns)



Category: Dr. Horrible's Sing-Along Blog, The Flash (TV 2014)
Genre: (?), Alternate Universe - Movie Fusion, Bad Spanish, Barrisco - Freeform, Canon-Typical Violence, Dr. Horrible's Sing-Along Blog AU, M/M, everyone is bi, if you've seen the movie then you know what happens, sorry about that, welcome to dr. horrible hell
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-07-07
Updated: 2016-07-07
Packaged: 2018-07-22 05:11:20
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 10,201
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7421263
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ferns/pseuds/bette
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>In which Cisco is a supervillain with a blog, Barry does charity work, and Oliver Queen is a jerk.</p><p>aka the barrisco Dr. Horrible AU that nobody asked for, but you're getting anyways.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Laundry Day

**Author's Note:**

> Special thanks to Anna and Mckenzie for all your help! Couldn't have done it without you.

Cisco clicked on the camera on his computer. It hadn’t been the best quality, but he’d upgraded it (and then refused to let Hartley anywhere near it. Pied Piper and Vibe may have been allies, but that didn’t mean they were allowed to break each other’s stuff), and now it was his only camera outside of the one on his phone. Caitlin said that was normal, but Cisco didn’t really know. Outside of people at fast-food places and the laundromat, he’d basically stopped talking to non-villains and non-heroes.

Clearing his throat, Cisco took a deep breath and motioned to the side of his monitor. “I know it’s been a little while since my last video,” he began, pushing his goggles up his face so that they were on his forehead. “Just wanted to apologize for that. Time caught up with me, ya know?”

He paused like he was waiting for a voice to reply to him before remembering that this was a video that had yet to be released, not a skype call.

Grabbing a sheaf of paper from off the table next to him, Cisco waved it at the camera. “Let’s just go right to emails, shall we?”

Cisco thumbed through them until he found one he hadn’t read before-he kept all of the emails in one pile, something that had caused him a lot of trouble on occasion. Especially when Caitlin came over in the summer. Apparently, Killer Frost _melted_ slightly. It was hilarious but cumbersome.

“All-That-Glitters writes, _‘hey, genius.’_ ” Cisco paused and looked right into the camera. “Wow, sarcasm! That’s original!” He looked back at the email in his hand after rolling his eyes. “ _‘Where are the gold bars you were supposed to pull out of that bank vault with the transmatter ray? Obviously it failed, or it would be in the papers.’_ ”

Cisco sighed and rolled his eyes again.

“Well, no, it _wouldn’t_ be in the press”-which there was a very good reason for called West Wind, but that wasn’t something Cisco was going to risk saying on camera. Criminals had a code, after all-“but behold!” He fumbled underneath his desk for a second and pulled out a bag of brown goop. “Transported from there to here!” Cisco bit his lip when he realized what the goop looked like (answer: _not gold bars_ ) and poked it with one finger. “Um, er… The molecules, they, uh, tend to shift during the, erm, transportation process. At least they were transported in bar form! They just, uh, arrived like this.”

He set the bag down, blushing, and coughed into his fist, wrinkling his nose. “Smells like rotten grapes,” he muttered, before looking at the camera. “It’s not about making money, anyways. It’s about _taking_ money. _Destroying_ the status quo because the status is… _Not_ quo. The world is a mess, and I just…” Cisco shrugged. “Need to rule it.”

He stayed silent for a moment, shifting in his chair, before his expression suddenly brightened. “More important than the transmatter ray, the freeze ray is almost ready! This is the one-freeze ray. Tell your friends. It stops time, which, believe me, was quite a challenge.”

Cisco reached for another paper and groaned.

“Oh, boy, here’s one from our good friend Citizen Cold,” he sighed, rolling his eyes and giving the camera a look like _can you believe this guy?_ “Ahem. _‘Vibe, I see you are once again afraid to do battle with your nemesis. I waited at the park outside of the CCPD for five minutes_ ’-okay. Look. Dude. You are _not_ my nemesis. My nemesis… Is the Arrow.” Cisco grimaced. “He shot me in the shoulder, again, last week.”

Cisco scowled and ran a hand through his thick dark hair.

“Look,” he said finally, “I’m just trying to change the world, okay?! I don’t have time for a grudge match with every poser in a parka with a stolen gun! Yeah, that’s right, buddy, I know you stole the designs for those guns you and your buddies run around with.” He blushed. “Besides, there’s kids in that park, so…”

Cisco shuffled his printed emails and chose another one.

“PeekabooIseeyou writes, _‘long time watcher, first time writing…’_ blah blah blah…” Cisco scanned down the page until he got to something that made him stop. “ _‘You always say on your blog that you will show him the way, show him that you’re a true villain… who is ‘him?’ And does he know that you’re… Vibe…‘_ ”

Cisco’s eyes shone and he smiled dreamily, looking off into space. He couldn’t say _his_ name on video, of course, Cisco would never risk his safety like that, but…

“He’s just this guy I know,” he sighed, automatically remembering a sweet smile and pretty eyes that changed color depending on the light, from blue to green to brown and back again. “We, er… Met… At the laundromat. He’s really nice, and one I gave him back one of his socks. They were really cute, with little yellow lightning bolts on them…” Cisco sighed again before snapping out of his reverie at the sound of a door opening. He hastily turned off his camera as a familiar voice rang through his house.

“Hey, Cisco! I’ve got your mail!” Caitlin shouted from by the door, and Cisco jumped to his feet.

“Hey, Cait,” he greeted, giving her a hug and nodding to Hartley, who leaned against his doorframe and crossed his arms. “What’s up?"

“Life of crime,” Hartley answered, rolling his eyes behind his glasses. “Caitlin’s got your mail.”

The cryokinetic handed it over and Cisco shivered-the paper was practically frozen. He set them aside to thaw. “Didn’t you two go on a double date last night? Deathstorm and Fury?”

Caitlin and Hartley both shrugged in unison, but Hartley was the one who spoke.

“Caitlin and Ronnie’s date seemed to go well,” Hartley said, scuffling his foot on the floor. “And, y’know, I really liked Earl, but…”

“I hear ya,” Cisco sighed, giving Hartley a friendly nudge in the ribs. Their relationship had gone from nemesis (believe it or not, for a while Hartley had played on the side of the angels) to acquaintance to friendly supervillain rivalry to genuine friendship. Cisco paused and looked at the ground. “I saw Barry today.”

“Did you talk to him?” Caitlin asked, squeezing by Cisco to open the fridge and root around inside of it.

Cisco shook his head. “So close. I’m just a few weeks away from a real, audible connection. I’m gonna ask-”

Cisco cut himself off and stared at the pile of mail. One of the letters on the bottom half was sticking out, revealing a familiar symbol. He grabbed it, running his fingers over the paper of the envelope.

“Oh my god,” he whispered.

Hartley’s eyes widened. “Is that from the League?”

Cisco flashed the front of the envelope at Hartley and Caitlin. “That’s his seal, isn’t it?” He said excitedly. “Oh man, oh my god-guys, this could be it! This could be my way in! I just got a letter from Zoom, _the_ Zoom! Hunter Zolomon himself!”

Caitlin raised an eyebrow. “Are you sure you want to open it?”

Cisco gaped at her. “Of course! He rules the Injustice League with an iron fist, of course I’m going to open it.”

Without any further ado, he ripped open the package and started to read.

_Mr. Ramon (Vibe),_

_We have received your application to join the Injustice League. But it needs evaluation-something to show us that you’re really willing to do something evil enough to get into the League. Which means that you’re now in a test period. Show us that you’re truly evil enough to join. Kill someone, commit a heinous crime, show us that you’re worthy of entering._

_The next time we contact you will be the last. Now show us that you’re truly heartless, truly ruthless, and a villain worthy of joining our ranks._

_Signed,_

_Zoom_

Cisco read it aloud to Caitlin and Hartley when he was finished, barely able to contain his excitement. This was his way into the big leagues, into the Injustice League. The one way that he would finally get the respect that he deserved from people like his brother and _especially_ people like the Arrow. Ugh.

“Are you sure about this?” Caitlin said doubtfully. Zoom had tried to recruit her a few times, and her husband Deathstorm was a reserve member of the Injustice League (he’d assured Cisco that he was pulling every possible string he could to get Cisco in), and Cisco trusted her judgement, but…

“Are you kidding? This is great!” Cisco exclaimed. “I’m about to pull a major heist! Remember the kryptonite that I needed for that, uh, side project? It’s being transported tomorrow!”

“Armored car?” Hartley asked, pushing his glasses up his nose. Cisco could practically see the gears in his head turning.

“Courier van. Like candy from a baby.” To accentuate his point, Cisco pulled the wrapper off of a grape sucker and put it in his mouth. He pulled it out again and pointed it at Hartley when the other villain looked like he was about to say something. “And no, you can’t ‘help’. This is _my_ heist, _my_ chance to prove to the Injustice League that I have what it takes. Neither of you can ‘help’.”

* * *

Barry Allen rocked on the balls of his feet, holding out his flyers nervously. “Uh, hey! It only takes a second, you don’t even have to read the-no? Okay. Hey, how about you! Do you have any time-oh, okay. Hey-! That was very rude, I’ll have you know!” He paused before his eyes brightened. “What about you? You just have to sign your name, that’s it-well, that and your email address, but-alright, I get it, you don’t have to do that. What about y-oh, gosh, I’m really sorry. Hey, could you-”

Not so far away, Cisco crouched down behind his black duffel bag (not the pink one, thank you very much, he was going for _stealth)_ and pulled out a pair of binoculars. Looking through them, he focused on the totally-not-at-all suspicious black van outside of a large building across the street.

Reaching deeper into his bag, Cisco pulled out a silver device attached to an app on his phone. Hartley had helped him code it, although by ‘helped’ Cisco meant sat next to him and made snarky comments about how bad at coding Cisco was before taking over the job entirely. At least that meant it was probably bug-free; Hartley was a bit of a perfectionist when it came to his tech.

Throwing the device into the air, Cisco watched it hover for a moment before honing in on its target and zipping over to attach itself to the roof of the black van. Smiling to himself that his invention had worked (Hartley had had no part in the building of the silver object), Cisco pulled his phone out of his pocket and opened the app. Humming a small tune to himself to help with his anxiety, Cisco tapped a few buttons and let the device do the rest as soon as he saw that it was operational.

From down the street, Barry spotted someone that he hadn’t asked yet. Jogging over before slowing to a walk a few feet behind them, he cleared his throat.

“Do you mind signing your name-”

 _“Ahh!”_ Cisco screeched, spinning around. His powers hummed underneath his skin, and he almost fired a vibrational blast out of his hands, but managed to contain himself at the last minute. His eyes widened as he came face to face with someone who was horribly familiar, and _god,_ this was not how he wanted their first proper introduction to go. “...What?”

“I-oh, um,” Barry looked flustered, and Cisco glanced down at his phone. At least he could pretend to be texting somebody or something like that while he controlled the van. “I was just wondering if you could sign these-hey, I know you!”

Cisco’s eyes widened as Barry suddenly grinned. “You-you know me? I mean, yeah, you know me…” He paused. “Do you?”

Barry frowned, suddenly unsure. “From the laundromat.”

“Wednesdays and Saturdays,” Cisco said immediately. “Except twice last week you skipped the weekend.” Then he realized his error and his eyes widened. “Or… If that even was you. Coulda been someone else. But I’ve seen you there.” Realizing that this was getting awkward, Cisco decided it was finally time to introduce himself. “I’m Cisco.”

Barry stuck out a hand. “I’m Barry.” Cisco forced himself to keep both hands on his phone, making Barry cock his head to one side curiously. “What are you doing?”

“Texting,” Cisco said apologetically. “It’s very, _very_ important, otherwise I would totally shake your hand. But, um, what are you doing? With your… Papers?”

“Actually,” Barry said, perking up, and Cisco could have sworn that the sun got just a little bit brighter than it had been before. “I’m out here volunteering for a nonprofit organization that helps kids without families or from families that can’t really afford to buy school supplies get the resources that they need to go into STEM work. It does some really important things, and I’ve been helping out for over three years there now. Do you want to sign it?”

Cisco glanced over his shoulder at where the van was parked. There didn’t seem to be any kind of activity going on over there yet, which meant that it should have been okay… As long as he signed fast. Just sign it quickly and then go back to the job. Don’t look at Barry’s eyes or his hair or his freckles or the way that the collar of his shirt dips-no, bad Cisco. No getting distracted on a heist.

“Okay.” As he accepted the clipboard, Cisco searched his brain for something to talk about. “Um, what do you need these signatures for?”

“We’re hoping to expand our reach,” Barry explained. Cisco couldn’t help but smile at the way he almost lit up when he was asked. Clearly, Barry was passionate about causes like this. “Open a second actual location outside of our online programs. There’s a great building nearby, perfect for what we have in mind, but the city is just going to demolish it to build a parking lot. Or a garage, it hasn’t been decided yet. But, if we get enough signatures-”

“Signatures?” Cisco interrupted, arching an eyebrow.

Barry blinked, clearly caught off-guard. “...Yeah.”

Cisco realized his mistake and winced. “I am _so_ sorry, go on.”

“As I was saying, if we get enough signatures, we’ll be able to use the space as a school-there are a lot of clients in this neighborhood, too, in case they can’t afford to take the bus and don’t own a car. We’ll be able to get several labs up and running pretty quickly, and we’ll be able to get a few of our older kids working with some of the younger students. It forms a nice community.” Barry stopped and looked at Cisco, blinking in confusion. “Usually, this is the part where you tell me you didn’t get any of that.”

Cisco shook his head. “I was involved in some stuff like that too, when I was younger. Nerdy brown kid that was really short for his age? I was a pretty obvious target. I went to some places like the ones you volunteer for and… There were some older kids that helped me out.”

He didn’t mention that at least three of those older kids had also helped him become a supercriminal with incredibly powerful metahuman abilities.

Barry grinned. “Well, thank you for your signature. I guess I’ll see you around? Wednesday, at the laundromat?”

“Wait!” Cisco said, before Barry could walk away, and immediately wanted to kick himself. What was he supposed to say? ‘I’m sorry I couldn’t shake your hand’? ‘I want to rule the world with you, so badly, I want the Earth to bow before us and hail us as gods’? ‘I have dreams about your smile, sometimes, and the way it lights the room up’? No, no, what had he been thinking?! “I-I hope you get a lot of signatures.”

Barry sent him another big sunny smile that made Cisco feel like he’d just swallowed hot chocolate on a cold day. “Me too. I hope you have fun with your… Texting.”

Cisco cracked a smile right as his phone let out a beep. “I will.”

He didn’t have any time to watch Barry leave and appreciate his jeans when the phone in his hands started to beep even more frantically. He looked across the street and narrowed his eyes. Yup, that was the kryptonite alright. Which meant that all he had to do now was follow the plan. Follow the plan, and everything would turn out just fine.

Cisco sighed and cast a glance over his shoulder at where Barry was walking away. “He talked to me,” he whispered, still stunned. “And it went _well!_ Oh, god, why did he have to talk to me now?” He looked down at his phone. The kryptonite was in position, but-Cisco bit his lower lip. “Maybe I should-no. I have to do this. I have to do this.”

He ducked behind a small wall and changed as fast as he could, pulling on his goggles, brown vest, and black boots as fast as he could. Cisco was on a time limit here-he had to move as fast as he could. As soon as he was done, he peeked out over the top of the wall below the wrought iron fence on top of it and pressed a button on his phone.

It was go time.

The van’s engine started and it pulled away from the building, completely empty except for the kryptonite Cisco so desperately needed. A small smile pulled at the corners of his mouth, and pride blossomed in Cisco’s chest. The plan was working!

Of course, the plan chose that minute to go horribly, horribly sideways.

From seemingly out of nowhere, heavy boots landed on the roof of the car, and a careless hand was stretched out to halt the innocent bystanders that already seemed to be running from the seemingly out-of-control car. Cisco swore.

“Stand back, everyone!” A deep voice shouted, and Cisco knew that it _had_ to have been fed through some sort of modulator. Nobody sounded like that. “Nothing here to see! Just, well, imminent danger that I’m in the middle of, but that just means you don’t have to worry. I’ll save you!”

The Arrow knelt down on the roof of the car and straight-up _punched_ Cisco’s device, halfway crushing it. Cisco puffed up like an indignant balloon. _Dios mío,_ what the hell was he doing here? And did he really think that he would get away with breaking one of Cisco’s toys? He didn’t even have super strength! He’d probably just broken his hand doing that maneuver! Not that Cisco was complaining. Maybe that dick would see what it felt like for a change.

The Arrow sprang neatly off of the top of the van as Cisco tried desperately to regain control of it. C’mon, c’mon, he could still fix this, he could still carry out the rest of his plan. Come on, come on, come _on!_

Cisco’s nemesis, meanwhile, was flirting with a young woman that hadn’t even been close to getting run over by the van. He was probably bragging about how he had saved her, the douchebag.

Cisco watched in horror as he realized he couldn’t make the van stop or turn away, right as it headed down an alley out of sight. Shit, this was bad, this was really bad.

The Arrow seemed to have noticed where the car was going as well, which did _not_ help the situation. Cisco got up and sprinted across the street, abandoning his duffel bag in the process.

He skidded to a halt, still desperately mashing the brake button, just in time to see the Arrow shove Barry out of the way into a pile of garbage, something that made Cisco’s blood boil. A vibrational blast danced at the tips of his fingers as the car _finally_ stopped, only a few inches away from the Arrow. Damn. Cisco had kinda been hoping that it would hit him. Give him a taste of his own medicine.

The Arrow smirked and rapped his knuckles on the hood of the van like he had been the one to stop it instead of Cisco.

“You _idiot!”_ Cisco shouted. He gestured wildly in Barry’s direction. _Ay dios mío,_ please don’t let him be hurt. “You almost killed him!”

The Arrow sneered. “I should have known you were behind this, Vibe. And I remember it differently-which one of us is the hero here, exactly?”

Cisco rolled his eyes behind his goggles and got up on his toes, trying to peer around the taller man at Barry. “Is he- _urk!”_

“It’s over, Vibe,” the Arrow said, narrowing his eyes behind that tiny dumb mask as he grabbed Cisco’s throat in one hand. “You’re going to jail. If you’re lucky, maybe you won’t get solitary confinement.”

Cisco gurgled and clawed at the hand around his throat. He couldn’t fire a blast from his hands without potentially taking off his own head, but maybe-Cisco’s thoughts were interrupted by Barry’s voice as he started to climb out of the pile of full trash bags.

“Thank you-um, it’s the Arrow, right?” Barry asked, tripping over a trash bag. Cisco relaxed slightly, relieved that he was okay even if his face was starting to turn purple because of the lack of oxygen. The Arrow chose that moment to slam Cisco’s head into the hood of the van, making his vision start to dim. “Thank you for saving me, I don’t know what I would have done if you hadn’t been there.”

“Don’t worry about it,” the Arrow said, puffing out his chest and shoving Cisco away. Cisco leaned against the side of the van, rubbing his throat and gasping for air while staring disbelievingly at the scene before him. No, no, no, this was all wrong. It was all wrong. “A man’s gotta do what a man’s gotta do, you know?”

Barry smiled, staring at the Arrow with an expression that was all-too-familiar to Cisco. It was one that he wore every time he thought of Barry. “I don’t know how I can ever repay you.”

“Are you kidding me right now?” Cisco said loudly, glaring at the Arrow. Neither of them paid any attention to him. “Did you even _notice_ that he threw you into the garbage?” When there was no reply, he crossed his arms and stomped his foot. He could just fire off a blast right now, but with his anger the way it was, Cisco was pretty sure it would come out far less concentrated than intended and potentially injure Barry. “Stop looking at him like that.”

The Arrow stepped closer to Barry, reaching out and cupping the bottom of his face. “Oh, I can think of one way.”

Cisco wanted to punch him in the teeth. “I stopped the van! The remote control is right here in my hand! I was the one who stopped it, not _him!”_

Realizing that now was his chance, Cisco scoffed and turned on his heel to enter the van and retrieve the kryptonite. “What- _ever.”_

As he hopped into the van and grabbed the case of kryptonite, Cisco pretended not to notice the way that Barry’s eyes were shining. The way that he beaming bright enough to blind someone. How the Arrow was most _definitely_ appreciating the way that Barry’s pants fit him.

“Ugh,” Cisco groaned. He turned around, unable to keep watching, and stomped out of the van and away from the scene. Pulling off his goggles once he was far enough away and almost back to his place, Cisco groaned again and punched a wall, hurting his hand. It was worth it to imagine that it was the Arrow’s face, though. So, so worth it.

But still… Barry and the Arrow. Cisco may have achieved his objective of stealing the kryptonite, but… _Barry and the Arrow._

Running a hand down his face, Cisco let out a small sigh. _“Mierda.”_

* * *

Cisco shoved his hands in his pockets, stalking off down the street. He needed to see Barry again, he needed to make sure that he was okay. That the van hadn’t touched him. Seeing wasn’t always believing, after all, and Cisco had also watched the Arrow practically throw him into some garbage. What if Barry had gotten sick because of that? What if he’d hit his head? What if he had internal injuries? What if the Arrow had done something to him after Cisco had left.

Cisco peered through the window of a restaurant, the one where he knew Barry and the Arrow were having their little date. The Arrow was out of costume and in his civilian identity, although everyone knew who he was so Cisco didn’t really see the point. People like the Arrow had no appreciation for a good old-fashioned secret identity, did they?

Barry didn’t _appear_ to be in any danger, instead laughing at something that the Arrow-no, that Oliver Queen had told him. Oliver sent the other man a charming smile that made Cisco want to puke, and the villain clenched his fists. He couldn’t hear what they were saying through the glass and across the restaurant, but he could make out the jist of what they were talking about. Oliver was regaling Barry with tales of his ‘heroic’ escapades, including foiling some of Cisco’s own schemes.

Even worse, Barry seemed to be _enjoying_ listening to him. Like Oliver was just a vain, self-centered, egotistical, and-

Cisco took a deep breath to calm himself down and turned around, forcing himself not to think about the way Barry’s eyes had shone when they looked at Oliver.

The next few days were a whirlwind. Cisco worked on perfecting his freeze ray with a kind of mad intensity, while also keeping an eye on Barry and Oliver. No, no, he wasn’t _stalking_ them, of course he wasn’t, he was just _observing._ Surveying. Keeping an eye on his nemesis’s whereabouts. That wasn’t illegal, was it?

(Well, almost everything that he did was illegal in the eyes of the law, but it still wasn’t against his moral code. And that was the only kind of legal that he cared about.)

It was during one of his investigations that he saw Barry and Oliver going on a date to a nearby frozen yogurt shop, and the brave part of his brain that made him a smart-mouth in the face of danger posed a suggestion. One that Cisco, to his immense surprise, actually followed through with on a later date.

* * *

“It’s so weird how we’ve seen each other and been coming here for so long and yet we never spoke before,” Barry said, smiling as he folded one of his shirts.

“I know,” Cisco agreed. “All those months doing a stunningly boring chore.”

“Actually, I’m a fan of laundry,” Barry said with a shrug, and Cisco’s stomach dropped. “The smell of fabric softener, the way the dryer sheets feel in your hands… I don’t know, it’s just nice. Reminds me of when I was a kid, if that makes any sense. I used to sit in front of the washing machine and watch the clothing spin.”

Cisco grinned. “That does sound good. And I guess the mundanity of it all is pretty nice, when you think about it.”

Cisco reached over to the white paper bag that he had gotten from the same frozen yogurt shop that he knew Barry loved. “Wow, that is so weird,” he remarked, “I ordered _one_ frozen yogurt and they gave me two. You wouldn’t happen to like frozen yogurt, would you?”

Cisco held out the container, which had definitely not been an accident.

“I love it,” Barry said, accepting the container with a grin.

“You’re kidding.” Cisco smiled at him, trying not to say anything awkward. “What a crazy random happenstance.”

He sat on top of the washing machine his clothes were in, handing Barry a spork and digging into his own frozen yogurt. Mmmm. “How was your weekend?” He asked. “Did you spend the whole time hunting wild signatures?”

Barry giggled, making Cisco’s whole body feel warm and fuzzy. “Um, actually, I went on a date.”

“Get right out of town,” Cisco said through gritted teeth. “How was that?”

“Pretty unexpected,” Barry said, smiling at Cisco and taking a few bites of his yogurt. He scuffled his feet on the ground. “It was… It was with this really good-looking guy, and at first I thought he was a bit full of himself.”

“Trust your instincts,” Cisco muttered into his frozen yogurt.

 _“But_ he turned out to be totally sweet, and a really great guy,” Barry said dreamily. Cisco hated that that expression was there. Glad that Barry was happy, of course, but jealous that he hadn’t been the one to _make_ him that happy. “Sometimes people are like that, I think. There’s something totally different underneath than what’s on the surface. It’s really interesting, in my opinion.”

Cisco swallowed his bite of yogurt. It went down like lead. “But sometimes, you know, there’s a third, even deeper layer, underneath the first two. And it’s exactly the same as what’s on top.”

“...Huh?” Barry furrowed his brow. It was adorable.

Cisco blushed. “Like, uh, like with pie. So, are you going to see him again?”

Barry paused, nibbling on his lower lip. “I… I actually think I will.”

His eye caught on something Cisco was doing.

“Um, Cisco?” He said tentatively.

“Yeah?” Cisco tilted his head to one side. It was kind of cute, like a long-haired puppy.

Barry flushed. “You’re driving a spork into your leg.”

Cisco looked down, looking surprised. “So I am.” He grimaced in an attempt to smile at Barry. “Hilarious.”

* * *

Cisco turned on his camera and coughed a few times. “Um. Uh. The, ah, freeze ray needs work. I also, apparently, need to be a little bit more careful about what I say on this blog, since apparently the CCPD and the Arrow are among my viewers.”

Oh god, oh god, what did they know about Barry? What if the Arrow figured it out? Shit shit shit shit.

Cisco tried to banish those thoughts from his head as he continued.

“They were waiting for me at the mayor’s dedication of the Jay Garrick Memorial Bridge,” he sighed. “Apparently, the freeze ray takes a few second to warm up and I was…” Cisco ran a hand down his face and groaned. “The Arrow almost shot me in the skull.”

Sure, he had blasted it out of the way before it could make contact, but still! That didn’t make it any better! He hadn’t thought that heroes like the Arrow were supposed to kill. Evidently, Cisco needed to do more homework.

“It’s okay, though,” he said, brightening, “because I’m-oh.” Cisco’s phone had started to ring. “Hang on a second.”

He pressed the cheery green ‘accept call’ button and held the phone up to his ear. Before he could say anything, however, an eerie garbled voice spoke into his ear in a low hiss.

 _“I saw the operation you attempted today, Vibe,”_ Zoom growled. _“I wasn’t impressed. Your humiliation means that this is your last chance to get on my good graces and join the Injustice League. And trust me, you will want to be one of us when we set our plans in motion. The only way for us to even consider letting you join now, Vibe, is for you to kill someone. An assassination, a murder, a convenient accident. There’s no other way._

 _“I… Look forward to seeing what you come up with._ Don’t _dissapoint me.”_

The other line hung up, and Cisco closed his eyes. Oh, _joder,_ what was he going to do now?

* * *

Cisco sighed and stabbed his frozen yogurt viciously. “You know, I just _really_ think I’m qualified for this job. And I can’t believe that they’re making me do all of this application stuff.”

Barry smiled at him and patted his hand, making Cisco’s insides melt a little bit while he struggled to keep his composure on the outside. “It’ll be fine, don’t worry about it.”

“I just want to do great things, you know,” Cisco sighed. “I want to be remembered as an achiever. Like Zoom.”

“The serial killer supervillain?” Barry asked, almost spitting out his frozen yogurt in surprise.

Cisco rushed to correct himself and decided to chose someone a little bit safer, but still with rather questionable moral ethics. “I meant Harrison Wells.”

“Well,” Barry sighed, “I got turned down from plenty of jobs before getting the one that I have now, so I know how you’re feeling right now. Not that you’re _going_ to get turned down, of course, it’s just that I understand how you feel. In this weird waiting period.”

“I can’t see why anybody would turn you down.” Cisco frowned slightly. If Barry told him the names of the people that had fired him, they were going to get a visit from an angry Vibe.

“Neither could I,” Barry said with a shrug, before letting out a small laugh that made Cisco’s toes curl up happily. “I mean, _now_ I can visualize it really, really well. But, you know, everything happens-”

“For a reason?” Cisco sighed as his frozen yogurt fell off of his spork back into the small paper bowl. His disgust for that mentality was clearly written all over his face.

Barry shrugged. “If you like, but I was just saying that everything happens. Whether it’s for a reason or not is up to you.”

The two ate in silence for a while before Barry spoke up again. “Can I tell you a story?”

“Sure,” Cisco replied, taken aback slightly. Not that he was really complaining; he could have listened to Barry talk all day. (Especially about science stuff. Cisco hadn’t even known that Barry was a scientist before, but that just made him even more attractive.)

“When I was a kid,” Barry sighed, setting his frozen yogurt down. “My mom was murdered.” Cisco sucked a harsh breath of air in through his teeth. “The police put my dad away for it. But he didn’t do it-he would _never_ do something like that. I’ve spent my whole life trying to find out who really killed her.” Barry closed his eyes. “My friend, she said that in another life, I could have been a hero or a villain with how hard that drive pushed me. And I know it’s a weird thing to say, just ‘everything happens’, but… It didn’t happen for a reason.”

“Barry, I’m…” Cisco ran a hand through his long hair, pushing it out of his face. “I don’t want to say ‘I’m sorry’. I know a lot of people do, and I know from personal experience that it doesn’t help. But I _am_ sorry, I really am.”

Barry shook his head. “It’s alright. There was nothing you could have done. And there wasn’t anything that I could have done either-I was only eleven at the time. But now… Now I’m still working to find my mom’s murderer and bring them to justice. And I _will_ succeed.”

“I believe in you,” Cisco said honestly.

Barry looked at him, surprise clear on his face. “You’re-you’re the only one who’s ever said anything like that before.”

Cisco grinned and reached out to tilt Barry’s chin up in a sudden rush of bravery. “Well, I’m glad that I’m the first, but I’m sorry that nobody else has said it before.”

For a moment they just stared into each other’s eyes, slowly getting closer and closer until-

Barry jerked away with a small gasp. “You know,” he said hastily, spell broken, “it’s just like Oliver’s always saying.”

Cisco clenched his jaw. How dare that bastard even _exist_ in the same world as Barry, how _dare-_

“Oh, right, that,” Cisco said instead of what he was thinking, sneering his next few words. “How are things with Mr. Tall, Buff, and Handsome?”

Barry didn’t seem to notice, and if he did, he didn’t comment on it. “Good, they’re good.” Barry paused. “I’ll be interested to know what you think of him, since he said he might stop by here today.”

All of the alarm bells in Cisco’s brain started to go off at once. “Stop-stop by _here?_ Stop by _today?”_

Barry frowned, obviously not understanding Cisco’s rapidly paling face. “Um, yeah.”

Cisco glanced down at his bare wrist and quickly made up an excuse to leave. “Oh, goodness. Look at my wrist. I gotta go.”

He stood up and started to walk as fast as he could toward the exit. Cisco didn’t want to actually run out of there and potentially arouse Barry’s suspicion, but…

“What about your clothes?” Barry asked. He looked so cute when he was confused, but Cisco didn’t have time to dwell on that right then.

He hastily checked the washing machine, letting out a small sigh of relief when he saw what was inside. “I don’t love these. See ya later, Barry!”

Instead of walking out the door, Cisco turned around and ran right into a well-muscled chest.

“Whoa,” Oliver- _fucking_ -Queen said, setting a hand on Barry’s shoulder and pushing him away. “Pardon.”

“Pardon,” Cisco responded quickly, keeping his face tilted toward the floor with desperate hope that the Arrow wouldn’t be able to recognize him if he didn’t see his face. Even though he probably already had when Cisco had run right into him and practically bounced off. What was that guy even made of?

“Oh, Cisco, this is Ollie,” Barry introduced, and Cisco’s blood boiled. _Ollie?!_ The Arrow was _not_ an _Ollie_ , he was a dick with a superiority complex that desperately wanted to beat Cisco’s head into the ground. And had done exactly that on multiple occasions while foiling Cisco’s heists and once while he was just getting ice cream in costume.

“Ah, Cisco, the science laundry buddy,” Oliver said, and was it Cisco’s imagination or was his tone forcefully cheerful? He shook Cisco’s hand with a crushing grip. “It is very nice to meet you.”

“It’s my pleasure to meet you too,” Cisco said, although it came out more like an angry strangled sound.

“You look awfully familiar,” the Arrow said, smirking at Cisco. The villain was tempted to deck him in the face right then and there, but that could only end badly.

“Just have one of those faces, I guess.” Cisco stuck his hands into his pockets and curled them into tight fists.

“Who wants to know what the Mayor is doing behind closed doors?” Oliver said loudly, throwing an arm around Barry’s shoulders and making Cisco want to strangle the hero to death slowly with his own dumb bowstring. “He is signing over a certain building to a certain organization as a new science outreach headquarters.”

“Oh my god!” Barry said delightedly, beaming, and Cisco wished that he could have been the one making him so happy.

“Yup. Turns out the only signature that the Mayor needed was my own. Said something about how he could never repay me enough for the countless times I’ve saved the city?” Oliver preened.

“I-I can’t believe this,” Barry said, clearly stunned. He threw his arms around Oliver and gave him a long kiss that made Cisco deeply uncomfortable before stepping away and squeezing the hero’s hand. “Thank you so much! You have no idea how much this means to me, Ollie.”

“Congratulations,” Cisco said, smiling at Barry. It was a little forced since his nemesis was _right there,_ but the sentiment behind it was completely genuine.

Barry’s washing machine buzzed, and he jumped. “Oh, man, I completely forgot.”

Oliver not-so-subtly watched Barry’s ass as he left to go get his clothes, making Cisco’s gut twist painfully. “Well,” he sighed, squeezing around Oliver to escape from the laundromat, “this has been great. I wish I could stay and chit-chat, but-”

Oliver easily grabbed Cisco and pulled him closer to his side, wrapping an arm around the supervillain’s shoulder. “Well it sure was nice to meet you too, _Vibe.”_

Cisco completely froze.

“You’ve got a little crush, don’t you?” Oliver continued, and Cisco scowled, opening his mouth to reply only to be stopped by the Arrow. “Well that’s going to make this hard to hear. See, later I’m going to take Barry back to my place, show him around. Take him on a tour of the command center. Show him everything I’ve got. You think he likes me now? I’m going to give Barry the night of his life. Just because _you_ want him. And I get”-he moved Cisco so that he was in front of him, held out at arm’s length-“what you want.”

It was taking all of Cisco’s willpower not to let his metahuman abilities explode out of every pore in his body, destroying the laundromat and everybody inside of it-which included Barry and himself.

“See,” Oliver continued, smirking, “Barry’s keeping it up, he’s keeping it up _hard._ Because he’s with the Arrow. And these”-he tapped the quiver that he always kept attached to his hip even in civilian clothes-“are not the arrows.” Oliver turned around and walked a few steps away before looking back at Cisco and sneering. “The arrow is my penis.”

Barry chose that exact moment to come back, carrying his laundry. He called out a goodbye to Cisco as he let Oliver lead him out of the laundromat, seemingly not noticing the blind fury on Cisco’s face. How-how _dare_ he say those kinds of things about _anybody,_ much less Barry?! Did that asshole really think that he could get away with something like that?!

At that moment, Cisco realized what he was going to do.

If he needed to kill someone to get into the Injustice League… Then who better to off than the Arrow? He was a smug, horrible, egotistical jackass who had no respect for others. Taking him out would be a public service. And since he was a hero, that was sure to score him a spot in the Injustice League, probably even as a core member.

A slow, steady smile spread across Cisco’s face. Anybody who saw him would have agreed that in that moment, he looked like someone who would pull the wing off of a bird just to watch it struggle.

Cisco stalked out of the laundromat. He had a device to build.

Moments later, he returned, retrieved his clothes, and _then_ stalked out of the building.

* * *

Barry fidgeted with his sleeve. Ollie had helped him pick out the outfit he was wearing to the grand opening, although Barry had drawn the line at one point when Ollie insisted that he would look much better in his underwear and nothing else. He was only ninety percent sure that his boyfriend was joking.

As he watched people filing in, Barry scanned the steadily growing crowd for Cisco. He’d been hoping that the other man would show up-he hadn’t had a best friend in forever that wasn’t Iris (and she didn’t count because she was practically his sister and thus was, by law, occasionally annoying (not that he loved her any less for it)), and while he and Cisco hadn’t really known each other for long, Barry still felt like he could have told him anything. Hopefully, Cisco felt the same way about him.

The mayor tapped the microphone as everyone got settled in, and Barry automatically stiffened and looked around for Cisco one last time, trying to ignore the uneasy feeling in his gut. If Cisco wasn’t here, he probably had a good reason. He’d mentioned having a brother a few times; maybe something was going on with him?

Barry chased the thoughts from his mind as the mayor finished up his speech. “Justice has a name,” he said, “and the name that it has, besides, well, _justice,_ is Arrow. Ladies and gentlemen, your hero!”

Ollie stood up from his place beside Barry, squeezing his boyfriend’s thigh and making Barry blush. As much as he loved kissing and hugging his boyfriend in public, showing off to some degree that he was in a relationship with someone as heroic as the Arrow, he was still a little bit wary about the reaction that the public eye would have to things like that. He liked his boyfriend (maybe even loved him), but…

Ollie shook the mayor’s hand, pausing for a moment to allow the cameras to snap pictures of them. Barry’s leg started to bounce nervously. He’d taken his anxiety medication this morning, so why did he feel like suddenly everything was about to go wrong very very fast?

“Welcome,” Ollie said into the microphone, nodding to the mayor as he left. “Thank you to the mayor for those kind words.” He shuffled the cards that he had written his speech on. “I hate the fact that there are people in this city,” he began, before flipping to a new card, “that don’t have the education that they need to thrive and succeed in life.”

Barry felt himself starting to zone out (what? He would have done that no matter who was talking) before he heard Ollie sigh into the mic and say, “You know what? I don’t need tiny cue cards.” Barry watched as he set them down, eyes widening. He had helped Ollie write those! “When I fell _deeply_ in love with my very serious, long-term boyfriend Barry-say hi. Look at him. Cute, huh? He’s got that quiet, nerdy thing. Not my usual, but still nice.”

Barry blinked at him, confused. What was Ollie doing?! Didn’t he realize how much time and effort Barry had spent on this?! No, no, Ollie was just nervous. This was his first _real_ speech since they had started dating. He was probably just worried about public backlash. It was fine, it was fine, everything was fine. Barry’s leg started to bounce again.

“Anyways. Barry was the one that turned me on to this whole thing. Without him, this never would have happened.” Barry blushed dark red. “It’s terrible. And it made me realize that just because one person faces villains like Vibe or Killer Frost or Cobalt Blue, it doesn’t mean that all of your villains are less real. It may not feel too classy, begging just to eat or to have someplace to send your kids. But home is where your heart is”-Oliver thumped his chest for emphasis-“so your real home’s in your chest.”

From his hiding place, Cisco rolled his eyes behind his goggles. _¡_ _Dios mio!_ Someone needed to shut this guy up already! Seriously, cut him off or turn off the mic or something! Christ.

That was when Oliver said something that made Cisco unconsciously fire a small blast from out of both of his hands. Luckily, it was so small it dissipated, but that didn’t mean that Cisco was any less furious.

“So I’d like to thank my boyfriend, Barry,” Oliver said loudly, gesturing one again to where Barry was sitting in his cute sweater vest. “We totally had sex.”

He said something else after that, but Cisco was to preoccupied with Barry’s face. It had turned bright red, and he was staring at Oliver with horror and shock. Cisco wanted to go over there and comfort him, maybe also help Barry punch his (hopefully now former) boyfriend in the face, but he knew that if he dared to move, he would never get into the Injustice League. This was his last chance. He had to do well.

He shifted position and slipped on his gauntlets. They were designed to help amplify but also concentrate his vibrational blasts. Hartley and Black Siren had helped him design them, although Black Siren mostly just rolled her eyes whenever Hartley tried to suggest that her powers were based off of the fact that she had been caught on video screaming at Oliver (who was, shockingly enough, her ex-boyfriend) that he was a cheating bastard. According to Hartley, her powers manifested out of pure fury at him.

Black Siren thought that that was ridiculous, and Cisco had to agree.

“Everyone’s a hero in their own way,” Oliver continued, and Cisco watched as Barry stood up and stealthily made his way offstage. Oh, good, that meant that he wouldn’t have to see when Cisco killed his boyfriend. “Everyone can blaze a hero’s trail! Don’t worry if it’s hard, if you’re even half as strong as I am you will prevail. Everyone’s a hero in their own way, remember that. Say it with me. Everyone’s a hero in their own-!”

 _Now!_ Cisco jumped out of his hiding place, firing the stun ray that he had brought with him. The blast made contact with the center of Oliver’s chest, and Cisco couldn’t suppress the laugh that bubbled up in his throat. Oliver was frozen, partially blasted back, with his arms outstretched in front of him like he had been trying to block the blast before it hit.

Cisco jumped down, boots hitting the floor. For the first time, he saw genuine terror in the eyes of the people around him. Terror that _he_ had instilled. It felt amazing, like a rush of energy to his head that made him feel like he could do anything.

“Look at these people,” he murmured to himself, eyes narrowing behind his goggles. He imagined that he looked like something otherworldly to them, with the glowing lenses of his goggles and the way his suit shone in the darkness (he had used up enough energy in the building to turn off all the lights when he fired the stun ray). “Amazing. Like sheep to the slaughterhouse.”

Cisco looked at Oliver, narrowing his eyes. “Why can’t they see what I see?” He wondered allowed. “Why can’t they hear your lies? Maybe the fees too pricy for them, hmm? They’d have to be burdened with this powers to see everything and _know_ everything that I do.”

Feeling a sudden rush of bravery, Cisco reached out and grabbed the chin of one of the women in the audience. “Now that your savior is as still as the grave, you’re afraid of me, aren’t you? I can see it in your eyes.” Actually, he couldn’t, but she didn’t have to know that. She was clearly already scared of him. “I could bring you pain, the kind you wouldn’t be able to suffer quietly. Remember, just because you think the world is perfect doesn’t mean that society isn’t slipping.”

Cisco’s mouth split open into a grin. _This_ was power. Who needed the Injustice League? He could rule the world without them, with Barry by his side as his partner in universal domination. No, _multiversal_ domination. Why bother just taking over one measly world when he could bring them all to their knees?

A small sobbing sound from one of the people behind him brought him back into the present, and Cisco realized what he was thinking. Ah, who was he kidding? There was no way that he would ever get any sort of recognition without the Injustice League. They were probably watching him right now. Maybe Zoom even had spies in this very audience that he had hostage. Well, in that case…

He raised a palm toward the ceiling, pushing away a bout of unease. He had tested this at home plenty of times, leaving his lab as a mess. But a test at home was different from application in the field, something that Cisco knew full well.

Cisco fired a blast out of his palm at the ceiling, smirking at the way it smashed through the plaster with ease. Hopefully Barry would forgive him for partially wrecking his new building. “Go ahead!” He shouted, spurring several of the bystanders into action as they fled the room. “Run away! Say it was horrible! Get a picture! Tell a friend you were here! Look at him, not a word! Now I win-now I get everything I ever wanted. All the cash, fame, the recognition-all mine!”

Adrenaline was rushing through his veins. Cisco was suddenly achingly aware of the way that he was slowly but steadily getting more and more tired. Shit, he’d forgotten to fix that bug, hadn’t he? Or, wait, no, it wasn’t even a bug. It was just a side effect of his powers that the gauntlets amplified; he got more and more fatigued the longer he used them. Which meant that he had to finish this quickly, if he wanted to finish it at all.

Cisco looked around one more time as he started to advance on Oliver. “No sign of Barry,” he murmured. “Good. I would give anything not to have him see.” He took a shaky breath. “Come on, Paco, you can do this,” he whispered, using his old childhood nickname. “Don’t get cold feet now. Especially not in front of _this_ joke who thinks he’s a hero.”

He held out a hand, palm only centimeters from the Arrow (Cisco couldn’t think of him by his real name, not now, not ever, not if he was going to kill him).

And that was when the lights flipped on, the stun ray deactivated with a small whine, and Cisco got punched in the jaw hard enough to throw him all the way across the room.

Cisco lay on the floor, completely stunned, for about thirty seconds before he felt a heavy boot step down onto the middle of his chest.

“Way!” Oliver shouted, since maybe it was important to him that he finish whatever it was that he had been saying before. Weird. The hero looked down at Cisco, sneering, and Cisco tried futilely to push the boot off of his chest. That was when he realized that when Oliver had punched him he had knocked the gauntlets clean off, and the archer was now holding one of them and pointing the palm down at him. Cisco winced as Oliver flipped him off.

The hero inspected the gauntlet in his hands. “You made this to kill me?” He said, raising an eyebrow. “Well, well, looks like Vibe is moving up in the world. Let’s see if these work any better than the last thing that you tried to use to fight me, hmm?”

Suddenly, Cisco noticed that the gauntlet in Oliver’s hand was starting to spark rather ominously. _Oh, no._ He made a few choked sounds at the back of his throat, trying to warn the other man of the danger. “Don’t-”

“I don’t have time for your warnings,” Oliver scoffed, moving his boot up so that it was on Cisco’s collarbone. “Say hello to St. Peter for me. Or whoever has his job, but in hell.”

He pressed the small manual trigger that Cisco had built into the palm of the gloves in case his powers, for some reason, stopped working or he grew too tired to use them but still had to. They were only meant to fire a small blast that would incapacitate his opponent so that he had time to get away (something that was Hartley’s idea), but Cisco had seen what Oliver hadn’t-the way that the gloves were sparking meant that the internal wiring was damaged.

So instead of firing out a small, concentrated blast, the gauntlet violently exploded, triggering the other one to explode too.

Oliver was blasted back and Cisco was sent tumbling across the floor, thankfully only the recipient of a small amount of force and only a tiny sliver of shrapnel that grazed his cheek. He patted his chest and face, making sure that everything was intact, before sitting up. Oliver was writhing on the floor, making small choked sobbing sounds of pain and fear, although unfortunately he wasn’t dead. As Cisco watched, he sprang to his feet and took off, shoving a reporter out of the way (he’d seen her a few times at the CCPN, hadn’t he? Linda Park, that was her name) and slipping out the door, still crying.

Cisco couldn’t stop a small smile from crossing his face. He’d done it! He’d defeated the Arrow! He may not have killed him, but now that the city was afraid of him-well, Zoom would _have_ to let him into the Injustice League now. He was _Vibe,_ now the most feared supervillain in the city for taking down the Arrow, Oliver Queen himself. The Injustice League would practically be _begging_ him to join their ranks.

As he looked around at the chaos that he had caused, Cisco’s eyes at first slipped over the person directly in front of him. But when he realized who they were, his head snapped back around, and for a moment all he could do was stare.

Barry was leaning against the wall, legs somewhere in between spread out and crossed in front of him. His hands were at his sides and he was looking somewhere off over Cisco’s shoulder, but the villain’s attention was focused on only one thing-the almost impossibly huge spar of shrapnel that impaled Barry’s chest.

Cisco was by his side in an instant, goggles pushed up onto his forehead and eyes wide with panic. “Barry?” He whispered, almost crying when Barry’s eyes focused on him. “No, no, no, no, Barry, listen to me, you’re gonna be okay, you’re gonna be okay, I promise you’re gonna be okay.”

Cisco frantically pressed down on the wound, trying to stabilize the shrapnel, not even noticing that he was getting blood on his hands as he babbled.

“Cisco?” Barry murmured in a small voice. “Is that you?”

“Hold on,” Cisco sobbed, blinking back tears. This couldn’t be happening, this couldn’t be happening, this _couldn’t_ be happening. “Just hold on, Barry, just hold on a little longer, you’re gonna be okay, I promise, just hold on, it’s okay, it’s okay, it’s okay, you’re gonna be just fine, don’t worry. Just hold on for a little bit longer, just a little bit longer.”

“Are you alright?” Barry whispered, voice cracking. Thankfully, he didn’t seem to be in any pain. Cisco looked around frantically for some sort of medic, listening as hard as he could for the sound of an ambulance or a fire truck or a police car. There had to be something, there had to be someone coming. There _had_ to be.

“Hold on,” Cisco repeated. “Hold on, hold on, hold on.”

“It’s okay,” Barry said, voice growing even fainter as he tried to smile at Cisco, blood dribbling down his chin from in between his teeth. “It’s okay, ‘Sco, it’s okay.” He took a shaky, ragged breath. “The Arrow will save us.”

Underneath his hands, Cisco felt Barry go still, the shallow rise and fall of his chest ceasing. He let out a small choked sound, grabbing Barry’s cheeks in his hands and raising the other man’s chin, staring deep into his blank hazel eyes. “Barry? Bar-please, Barry, please, wake up, wake up, you’re gonna be okay, you’re gonna be okay, I promise you. You’re gonna be okay. Please, just wake up, I can _hear_ an ambulance, you’re going to be just fine, I swear, Barry, please, please wake up, you _have_ to wake up.”

But no matter how much he tried and no matter how hard he begged, Barry didn’t move again.

Cisco stumbled back, gripping at his hair. He hadn’t even noticed that his hands were covered in blood-covered in _Barry’s blood._ Because Barry was-because Barry was-

He could hear camera shutters snapping he could see the bright light on his face from the flashes, but-why were they taking pictures of him? What did they want from him? What did they want from _Barry?_ Before any reporters or cameramen could get close, Cisco bent down and picked Barry up off of the floor. His body was still warm, although it was cooling fast, and carried him slowly over to one of the tables that had once had food on it before the explosion blew the food off of it.

Barry’s body was awkward and gangly, making him difficult to carry, but that didn’t deter Cisco from gently setting him down, dropping his goggles back down over his eyes so that nobody would be able to take a picture of his tears.

Then he turned around and slowly walked out before sprinting for home, hands bloody and vision blurred with tears.

* * *

“Reverb?” Black Siren said, and Cisco looked up. “Care to share with the class?”

Cisco looked around at the rest of the Injustice League. “About what?”

“What you think we should do to stop the latest _hero”-_ Cobalt Blue curled up his lip and exchanged a glance with Deathstorm-“who’s already taken down Killer Frost, Pied Piper, _and_ Dr. Light.”

Reverb smiled, shoving his past into the back of his mind. “Oh, I have a few ideas.”


End file.
